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ETON-DORNEY — Darcy Marquardt invested a decade of her life in pursuit of an Olympic medal and Thursday, as she sported one around her neck, she wasn’t particularly interested in analyzing the bigger picture around it.

“I had so much trust in the work we’ve done,” said the Richmond rower. “We’ve been so consistent day after day in training and racing this season. We laid it all on the lane today and that’s an Olympic silver. We can’t be upset with that.”

No, on this day the women’s eight had their own story to tell. They rowed splendidly at Lake Dorney, mounting a late charge on the monster American crew, then came up a second and a half short of their sports’ biggest prize.

But, before the race, they also met and pledged that if they maintained their trust in each other, if they worked together as a team and if they invested every last joule of energy in the race, they would be satisfied with their performance.

The silver medal? That was just a happy by-product of that pledge.

“That’s what we trained for,” said Port Moody’s Krista Guloien. “We trained to get as close to perfection as we possibly could. That was our perfection today.”

That, at least, was the story of the women’s eight on Thursday and they’ll always have that moment, and that medal, from the Olympic rowing regatta.

It’s about a Canadian team that has under-performed, a team that was supposed to deliver results and position Canada to move near the top of the rowing world. The women’s crew won their silver on Thursday. The men’s eight won silver on Wednesday. But Rowing Canada placed just one other boat in a final, the heavyweight men’s pair of Dave Calder and Scott Frandsen who row on Friday.

That’s three finalists out of seven boats — and that falls far short of the goals Rowing Canada set at these Olympics.

“We had a team goal of three to five medals and we’re on track for the three,” said Peter Cookson, Rowing Canada’s high-performance director. “Clearly we were looking for golds. Are we totally satisfied? I’d say no. We wanted to be better than what we showed here. We’re going to have to regroup and look toward 2016 and 2020.”

But first they have to determine what went wrong in London.

On Thursday, the lightweight women’s pair of Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee and the men’s heavyweight four failed to qualify for their finals, underscoring the theme of Canadian disappointment. The four was considered a dark horse and the hope was they’d sneak into the final and surprise. Instead, they finished a distant fifth in their semifinal.

Jennerich and Obee, meanwhile, were thought to have gold-medal potential but — after a chaotic run-up to the Olympics in which Jennerich’s partner Tracy Cameron suddenly retired seven weeks before London — they finished fourth in their heat and were relegated to the B final.

Afterwards, the emotion of the day was painfully apparent.

“It’s the worst feeling in the entire world,” said Derek O’Farrell of the men’s four, his voice breaking. “I imagine it’s the same feeling as finding out a family member has been shot. We just trained so long and so hard for this.”

“I’m talking about it now and realizing a lot of things,” said Jennerich, who was in tears. “I said to Obee, there’s seven minutes of your life that suddenly takes you out of a shot at an Olympic medal.”

But beyond the crushing individual disappointment, Rowing Canada faces some big decisions. The contract of Mike Spracklen, the coach of the men’s eight, expires after London and the feud between the 74-year-old coach and Rowing Canada has been well documented in and around the Olympics. Spracklen is a polarizing figure but he delivers results on a consistent basis.

It’s hard to see where Rowing Canada can ignore those results over what amounts to a clash in personalities.

A number of veteran leaders also are likely in their last Olympic cycle. To be sure there are rising stars within the program: North Vancouver’s Lauren Wilkinson and Conlin McCabe in the eights, Obee in the lightweight sculls. But, as London demonstrated, there are also gaping holes to fill.

Cookson, for his part, talked optimistically about Rowing Canada’s recruitment program and its efforts to develop a new generation of world-class rowers. But, in the next breath, he said the Canadian program was in its second year and it’s a decade behind countries like Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

“It’s working here but it takes time,” said Cookson. “We’ll be able to match those countries, if not beat them.”

Hopefully, it won’t take 10 years.

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Canada's Olympic silver lining as women's rowing eight lays it all on the line (with video)

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